


And the Devil Makes Three

by stereobone



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:35:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereobone/pseuds/stereobone
Summary: "Are you…" Crowley holds the word on his tongue a moment. "…jealous of Satan?""Now that would be just ridiculous," Aziraphale says.But he doesn't say no.





	And the Devil Makes Three

They have been drinking solidly for the past four hours or so, as they like to do when they're in each other's company. Crowley is hunched over a chessboard in Aziraphale's backroom, fingers steepled against his chin and mouth as he considers his next move, which is nothing, because Crowley plays chess with no strategy whatsoever. He cheats by slight-of-hand and still manages to lose every time. Aziraphale has told him he finds this endearing. Crowley pours himself another very generous glass of merlot and Aziraphale's pawn disappears off the board at the same time.

"So, as I was saying." Crowley drains half the glass. "Greece is awfully lovely this time of year. Full of…donkeys and such. Grape leaves."

He hasn't been saying anything of the kind, but Aziraphale nods anyway. He has the look he gets on his face when he's about to call checkmate.

"You're taking a holiday?" he asks, and hiccups.

"Not exactly," Crowley says. "Got another commendation for demonic work well done. You ought to come with."

Aziraphale hums, deftly takes the pony looking piece, and Crowley sputters at the chessboard.

"You know how that would look," he says, setting Crowley's pony piece neatly to his side of the board. "Though I do love the food, yes."

Crowley makes a move, quickly, not paying much attention, and tells Aziraphale that no one checks, really, so what does it matter? As long as their respective head offices are happy. It's 2009, for Hell's sake. If no one has caught them now, they're fine.

"So you've said." Aziraphale moves a piece Crowley can't be arsed to remember the name of at the moment. He doesn't understand chess. "That's checkmate I'm afraid, my dear fellow."

Crowley leans close to the chessboard, as if the very game has caused him some great offense, and like his plants, he can scare it into submission. This lasts about six seconds before he slouches back into his chair again and finishes his wine. He doesn't look at Aziraphale, because he takes immense pleasure in beating Crowley at chess. He says he doesn't, but Crowley can see it written out on his drunk, reddened face. Aziraphale is surely smiling, triumphant. At any rate, Crowley couldn't be mad at him even if he wanted to be.

"You know," Crowley says. "If _you _stretched the truth a bit more, you'd get that twat Gabriel off your back."

"I don't _lie_," Aziraphale says, straightening. "…Often."

"Welltryitmoreoften," Crowley slurs out, before setting down his wine glass to pull his hair back into a ponytail. He's grown it long again. He thinks Aziraphale is fond of his hair longer, though he's never said as much, because, well, there are certain things that aren't said between them. That, and Aziraphale thinks tartan is stylish.

"I suppose Satan must be very pleased with you," Aziraphale says. "Top demon and all."

Crowley grins, tying his hair off. Sure, Satan might have been partly responsible for his fall from Heaven, but it's nice to know he's his favorite demon. Probably. He _has _given the most importantly Earthly jobs to him. Crowley watches Aziraphale gingerly pack up the chess set—it's antique, seventeenth century.

"Well he did entrust me to deliver the antichrist," Crowley says.

"A job you did not want," Aziraphale points out.

"_Still,_" says Crowley. "He likes my work. Hastur and that lot didn't understand what I was doing with the M25, but d'you know what Lucifer said?"

He pauses to get the impression just right, that ridiculously posh, smooth voice: _What you did to the M25 was a stroke of demon genius, darling. _He picks up his wine glass to finish it off and frowns when he realizes he's already done so. Then there's the sound of something skittering across the floor. Crowley sees a castle piece (rook, isn't it?) roll uneven to his shoe and collects it in his palm. When he goes to return the piece, Aziraphale snatches it back like Crowley has stolen it, like they can't risk touching.

"Well then," he says, clipped. "I suppose I'll see you when you're back from Greece."

Aziraphale pulls at his bow tie, expression suddenly pinched. Crowley leans back in his chair, dark eyebrow raised.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?"

He already knows the answer, but he likes to ask. Most demons are sadists, Crowley happens to be a masochist.

"Quite sure. I have a bookshop to run."

"You've never even opened the till," Crowley says.

"That's not true," Aziraphale says, clutching the chess set. "I opened it in 1822!"

"Suit yourself, then." He reaches for the merlot bottle. "More wine?"

Aziraphale shakes his head. He's still clutching the chess set like Crowley has insulted both its modesty and its honor. He finally lets go and pulls his waistcoat down, shakes his head again.

"Actually, perhaps you should go," he says, and he sounds a touch upset.

Crowley stands. Aziraphale never says no to more alcohol, not unless they're fighting. Are they fighting? He can't imagine what would have been so upsetting, not even the remark about the till—they're always making jokes about how Aziraphale doesn't _actually _sell books. Aziraphale must see the confusion on his face, because his expression softens slightly.

"It's not you—I just—I have things to do, you see." He ushers Crowley to the shop door. "Things to think about and—read and the like, so. So, toodle-loo."

Crowley spins back around. "_Toodle-loo_?"

Aziraphale nearly goes cross-eyed.

"Goodnight, Crowley! And give me back the pawns you took."

Crowley empties his pockets.

\--

He's given Aziraphale lots of lifts places. The first was in 1941, and Aziraphale stroked the interior of the Bentley like it was a horse rather than a machine, which was when Crowley began to suspect Aziraphale had perhaps never ridden in a car before. The Bentley took a liking to Aziraphale after that, which was well enough, because Crowley took a liking to Aziraphale about three seconds after they started talking.

In 1967, when Crowley offered to give Aziraphale a lift, he didn't really mean a ride. He meant, well, everything. Anything. He meant himself. And Aziraphale told him quite gently that he went too fast for him. Which was devastating, though not an outright rejection, and if Crowley hadn't been holding a thermos of holy water he may or may not have tried to push the issue.

After Aziraphale left the Bentley, Crowley drove back to his flat the slowest and most careful he'd ever driven, the thermos tucked carefully in the passenger seat beside him.

_I can drive slow, _he thought. _I can _go _slow. _

Some years later, after the holy water had been safely locked away, Crowley began to wonder if Aziraphale meant Crowley's very being was too fast. That Crowley, as he was, was too much. That he'd never be slow enough. Which was another problem entirely.

Still, Crowley continues to go slowly. Quite slowly. In every aspect but driving, of course.

\--

Greece is nice, Crowley thinks. It's sunny, salt-breezed, good alcohol, Crowley even indulges in some olives in Aziraphale's honor. He's in a villa overlooking the Mediterranean, right now actually avoiding the sun, because there is such a thing as _too _much sun for demons. Technically, he should be in Athens contributing to the economic issues, but one thing Hell doesn't understand is that humans really do muck things up on their own. Crowley hardly has to intervene at all these days. He's had plenty of fun just relaxing in Oia and freeing some donkeys in the middle of the night for the sheer joy of it.

Crowley is lounging in bed when there's a knock on the door, and he hopes it's not the old woman from down the way again, because Crowley is responsible for a lot of things, but he's not going around scaring anyone's chickens, he has _limits. _He stretches up from bed and slinks over to the door.

It's Aziraphale. Crowley lifts up his sunglasses to be sure.

"Angel?"

"Well don't look so shocked," Aziraphale says.

"Sorry, just…you said you didn't want to come to Greece. Said it wouldn't look good if anyone checked up."

"I know." Aziraphale sounds like he's trying not to sigh. "But I decided—oh, are those olives?"

He brushes past Crowley, grabs a handful from the bowl, and pops them into his mouth. Crowley stands by the open door, and if he were a blinker, he'd blink. Aziraphale is a stubborn bastard. When he decides something, it's pretty much decided, unless Crowley needles him about it because he knows he's being ridiculous. Him showing up is a bit odd, but then, Crowley is delighted. Greece is nice. Greece with Aziraphale is nicer. He shuts the door.

"Decided the bookshop could get along without you for a bit?"

"You did bring up a fairly good point about the till." Aziraphale plucks out another olive from the bowl. "Any good restaurants nearby?"

Crowley smiles. "I've heard talk of a little place that does an excellent moussaka."

"Oh, splendid," Aziraphale says.

"And we could go to that little island where they shot that stupid musical you like."

Aziraphale gives him a severe look.

"Crowley," he says. "_You_ like that musical."

"I was responsible for its creation, that's _completely_ different."

Aziraphale gives him a look that clearly says, _If you say so, _but says nothing, just grabs Crowley's jacket for him off the back of the chair and hands it over to him. They walk the steps of Oia together, talking quietly, laughing, and Crowley is very glad that Aziraphale came here. For a moment there, he'd worried that they were fighting.

Things get a bit odd at dinner. Aziraphale gets his moussaka, Crowley orders the lamb shank, and halfway through the meal, he dabs his mouth with his napkin and says, "Have you, um, talked to anyone?"

Crowley considers this a moment.

"Well, there is this old woman down the road who thinks I'm harassing her chickens, and maybe you'll get her to think otherwise—"

"No I meant…has he…" Aziraphale makes a pointed nod to the floor.

Now Crowley does blink. Aziraphale never asks about Satan.

"Uh, no," Crowley says. "Can't say that he has."

Aziraphale takes another bite of food and hums around his fork. Topic dropped, apparently.

"But when he does talk to you—" Or not. "—How exactly does that happen?"

Crowley stares at him. Thinks back to last year, driving the Bentley with the antichrist in the backseat, Satan popping through the stereo to say hello. That form of communication had been Crowley's idea, so stupid, but of course Satan loved it. Crowley remembers receiving the instructions on where to go, what to do. Satan had just sort of…gone into him. A possession, albeit a brief one. It's happened before. He'd felt cold, and suddenly just known what to do, and his body tingled, and then he almost got hit by a bloody lorry. Crowley relays the information to Aziraphale as casually as possible. Leaves out the fact that he may be just the tiniest, smallest bit terrified of Satan.

Aziraphale's fork scrapes across the plate.

"He _goes inside you_?"

Crowley winces with his entire body.

"That's—maybe we shouldn't put it like that."

"Certainly what it sounds like," Aziraphale says.

He's stabbing at his moussaka now, as if they hadn't fully killed the beef and lamb and he needs to finish the job himself. Crowley cocks his head.

"God used to do that, you know," he says. "Inhabit bodies, speak through light."

"That's quite different."

"How so?"

"It just is," Aziraphale says.

Crowley looks at his utterly destroyed moussaka and says, "Angel, are you all right?"

"Fine," Aziraphale tells him. "And I would like dessert."

Crowley signals for the menu back.

Satan isn't brought up again, and Crowley is grateful for that. They do go to Skopelos where most of _Mamma Mia! _was shot, which they both end up regretting a bit, because they have ABBA songs stuck in their head the whole time. Crowley can't remember why he thought it'd be so blessed funny to get that made. Though Aziraphale does walk very close to him, closer than usual, and puts his hand on Crowley's arm a lot to point things out to him. He even rolls up his trousers and walks out ankle-deep into the sea next to Crowley, gentle waves licking at their calves as they watch the sunset. All in all, Crowley thinks it's a pretty good trip.

\--

Usually, when they do something off-books like that, Aziraphale gets a bit dodgy and puts some distance between them for a bit. Crowley has gotten used to it.

This does not happen after Greece.

Two days after they get back, Aziraphale calls him up and invites him to the cinema.

"From what I understand, the plot is they break into people's dreams," he says over the phone. "And I thought perhaps after we could go for coffee."

"Unless you're quite busy," he says.

Crowley stares stupidly at his phone, not that Aziraphale can see it. He had plans for today, one of which included misting and yelling at his plants, the other of which included tempting the whole of MI6, but he can put that off, honestly.

"Of course I'm not busy," Crowley says.

He thinks that might have sounded too eager. Aziraphale doesn't seem to notice.

They go to the cinema, and coffee turns into dessert, which turns into a nightcap at the bookshop, which turns into Crowley getting home very late, not that he's complaining.

In fact, they start hanging out more often. Sometime in the seventeenth century, the Arrangement led way to dinner dates and lunch dates, which was all well and good as far as Crowley was concerned, though he was mostly the one instigating them. And that's sort of continued on. He calls, Aziraphale almost always answers. Only now, Aziraphale is starting to call, and Crowley is always answering: lunch, dinner, park meetings, art galleries, the theater, it doesn't matter. He doesn't know what's changed, maybe the idea the world may very well end in ten years. Crowley isn't about to risk questioning it. He's never had this much attention from Aziraphale in the six thousand years they've known each other. The Arrangement continues, their plan for stopping the apocalypse continues, and they see each other far more often than ever before.

Also, every year or so, Aziraphale asks him if he's heard from Satan.

"Why would I have heard from him?" Crowley asks.

"Just wondering," Aziraphale says, stirring his miso soup.

They're at a Japanese restaurant, where Crowley is enjoying warmed sake and trying not to notice the soup running temptingly down Aziraphale's chin.

"Look, if there was anything going on with the antichrist, I'd tell you."

"I know," Aziraphale says, eating faster now. "Of course."

"Well all right then," Crowley says, and thinks, _You absolute bloody weirdo. _

\--

In 2013 they show up at the Dowling's in their respective disguises and get to work.

Crowley watches Aziraphale from the windows of the house while little Warlock runs circles around his skirts and sets a strict bedtime, feeds him organic food, and does not allow any cartoons that are "feel good." Children need to be exposed to certain things. They do demented arts and crafts after naptime and Crowley is fond of the boy, he really is. Even his constantly sticky hands. Warlock scrapes his knee in the garden once and cries against Crowley's breast for ten whole minutes, Crowley stroking his hair, and he doesn't mind, he doesn't mind.

"And what have you learned today," Crowley asks him one night at bedtime. It's been two years. Warlock is seven now.

"That it would take about five and a half days for a single pig to eat a dead body," Warlock says.

"Very good," Crowley says. "Now go to sleep, dear."

Warlock settles under the covers and asks, "Will you stay until I fall asleep?"  
  
"Of course I will."

He waits until Warlock is fast asleep, and even after that, before thinking about moving. It's hard to tell if anything he and Aziraphale are doing is working. Warlock _seems _normal. Crowley does his best—words of ill encouragement and setting ants on fire and such, then lets Aziraphale do the opposite, but they won't know until the boy is eleven. Crowley sighs, stands. The little toy robot at the edge of Warlock's room whirs to life.

"Crowley," it says, in a very posh voice.

"Ah," Crowley says. "Er, hi."

_Shit, _he thinks. _Shit, shit, shit. Will he sense Aziraphale? _

"Tell me, Crowley, how is my son?"

"Oh just fine," Crowley says. "Remarkably evil, really. Dreaming of destruction right now, I reckon."

"Wonderful. And what a delightfully interesting outfit you've chosen."

Crowley wrings his leather-gloved hands together.

"Yeah…well…y'know." He doesn't know how to explain Mary Poppins to Satan at the moment. "Humans are into it."

"Well you do know them best," Satan says. "It's why I chose you, darling."

The robot shuts off. Crowley stands there a moment, statue-still, waiting for him to come back and wonder why the Heaven there's an angel living in the back garden. Then again, Aziraphale probably thought to shield himself from that sort of prodding. Crowley lets out a breath of relief when nothing further happens. He creeps out of the room before Warlock wakes up.

He finds Aziraphale the next morning, trimming the rose bush in a way that doesn't altogether make sense. Aziraphale grins at him with those stupid buckteeth, even though the disguise isn't strictly necessary at the moment—the whole family is out at the zoo.

"How's dear Warlock?" he says.

"Don't call him dear, he's the antichrist." Crowley swats a gnat from his face. "Anyway, he's fine. His dad called to check in last night."

Aziraphale nearly takes a rose off with his shears.

"You mean—you don't—he called—should I—"

"Relax, angel, he's gone."

Aziraphale is still looking around like he might come back any second. He doesn't look scared, more…affronted.

"What did he say?"

"Wanted to check up on his son. Ask about the impending apocalypse. The usual." Crowley adjusts his hat. "Think he likes my outfit."

Aziraphale frowns.

"Anyway—" Crowley starts.

"Why don't you come by the garden house for tea?" Aziraphale says.

"Anyway—pardon?" says Crowley.

"Tea." Aziraphale says it like Crowley has never heard the word in his life. "And I have some biscuits."

He sets the garden shears down and sets off without waiting to hear Crowley's answer, so Crowley follows. He's never actually been in the garden house before. It's fairly roomy, smells like lemon and lavender. Or maybe that's the biscuits. Aziraphale gets the kettle going and takes his false teeth out, much to Crowley's relief. Crowley delicately takes his hat off and sets it on the hook by the door, adjusts his hair and pulls off his gloves. Once the kettle boils, Aziraphale pours them both a cup of tea and they sit at the table. The biscuits are ginger flavored, though only Aziraphale eats them.

"Do you think it's working?" Aziraphale asks.

Crowley shrugs, crosses his legs. "Guess we'll know in four years."

Aziraphale chews a biscuit thoughtfully. Then: "What did Satan look like? Back when he was just Lucifer Morningstar?"

Crowley exhales through his mouth, long and slow.

"Well, he was good looking, I'll give him that. A really handsome angel. Probably why he got so many other angels to follow him in the whole angelic civil war business."

"You as well?" Aziraphale asks, quite innocently.

Crowley looks at him, considering. Surely Aziraphale isn't asking, surely he's not implying…no. No. Of course he's not. That's not something Aziraphale does. That would be swimming into dangerous territory that Crowley won't let himself even think about.

"Look," Crowley says. "It was really a lot simpler than all that. More like, 'Hey now, you do so much good work, what beautiful stars, shouldn't you get a bit more credit?' And I thought, maybe? Next thing you know I'm trying to stop my wings from burning. Can't say he wasn't charming."

Aziraphale's expression softens. He reaches out, then seems to remember himself, and stops halfway. He rests his hand on the table between them.

"Oh, Crowley," he says.

"He's a big old red bugger now," Crowley says, shifting. It's always odd, talking about before. "At any rate, I haven't actually _seen _him in a good three thousand years or so."

"Oh," Aziraphale says. "Well good."

He says it with relief in his voice. Then he shoves the entire biscuit in his mouth.

"Uh, sure." Crowley sips his tea. "I should get back, probably."

"Stay," Aziraphale says, voice quiet. "Just a while longer."

Crowley's resolve, weak as it always has been for Aziraphale, loosens and dies away immediately. Of course he's not going to say no. Not to Aziraphale. Never to him. He stares into his tea.

"I have whisky in my carpet bag, you know."

"That hardly seems appropriate for a nanny."

"Ah-ah," Crowley says, already opening the bag. "A good nanny is always prepared."

"And how," says Aziraphale. He sets down his teacup.

\--

Lunch at the Ritz consists of: an appropriate amount of champagne, two appetizers, two entrees, coffee, four desserts, and an invitation back to the bookshop. Crowley collapses on the couch in Aziraphale's backroom, the definition of content. Aziraphale is already preparing a cup of cocoa for himself. Crowley's declined a cup, but the smell is divine, and lies on his back, happy to just be there. He's happy, that's what it is.

Aziraphale comes back out holding his mug and smiling. He blows his cocoa cool before sitting at his desk.

"It is nice, isn't it, not to have to answer to anyone?"

He looks dangerously cute, all round cheeked and blue eyed. Crowley nods.

"I'm glad not to have to answer to Satan anymore, tell you that."

"Hm," Aziraphale says. "He was a sight, wasn't he?"

Crowley nods again, then cocks his head. "Wait, who was?"

"Satan."

"Er, what do you mean?"

Aziraphale is very consciously not looking at Crowley. First he takes off his reading glasses and cleans them before putting them neatly to the side. Then he picks up a book seemingly at random and places it higher up on the desk. Finally he says: "I mean, he certainly wasn't very nice to look at."

"…Well, no," Crowley says, very slowly. "I suppose not."

Aziraphale is quiet a moment.

"I mean I'm just saying I'm not sure what all the fuss is about when he's really rather…dull."

Crowley shoots up onto his elbows. _Dull _isn't the word he'd choose. Then again, Aziraphale didn't feel it when his anger was ignited, the absolute gut shot of pain that took Crowley to his knees and made him so terrified he couldn't even _think _until Aziraphale spoke to him. But even without feeling all that, seeing a big old red bugger pop out of the earth with a crown of horns and the ability to destroy them like tiny bugs and describing it as dull is…pretty fucking odd.

"Angel," he says. "What the Heaven are you on about?"

Aziraphale is holding his mug very close to him. He takes a careful sip, then sets it down. Then he picks it up again. Then he sets it down again.

"I mean all that talk over the years: Satan this, Satan that. Satan loves my work. Then he shows up only to be defeated by an eleven-year-old boy. Not very impressive. Don't see why you liked him."

Crowley's mouth drops open. If he were drunk he'd think he has absolutely misheard. He still thinks he must have misheard, though Aziraphale's frown and slight blush tells him otherwise. He has to sit all the way up for this, so he does.

"What," he says. "What are you talking about? I never said I liked him."

"But—" Aziraphale flounders a moment. "Yes, not directly, but you—"

Aziraphale cuts himself off and immediately looks elsewhere. Crowley is still sitting there with his mouth open like a grand old fool. He thinks back over the last eleven years and isn't sure who needs to be shaken more, or first.

"Are you…" Crowley holds the word on his tongue a moment. "…_jealous_ of Satan?"

"Now that would be just ridiculous," Aziraphale says.

But he doesn't say no.

"Aziraphale," Crowley says. "You're an idiot."

"I—Crowley!"

"Of all the—you got jealous of Satan? _Satan_? I don't even like him!" _He's scary! _sits humbly in the back of Crowley's throat.

"But he seems to like you very much." Aziraphale shrugs. "Or did, rather."

"What," says Crowley.

"Possessing you, calling you darling, never having anyone check up. I mean really, Crowley, did it never occur to you that he might…fancy you?"

Crowley stares at Aziraphale, then off into dusty expanse of the bookshop, into nowhere, trying to digest that information, and finds that he can't. He shakes that notion right out of his head.

"Who cares," he says. "I don't give a toss about what Satan fancies. I don't want him, I want you!"

He slaps a hand over his mouth. Like he can take the words back, steal them from the air and gobble them back up. It's too late. Aziraphale is smiling at him, struck. He looks stupidly in love with him and suddenly Crowley doesn't know if he can handle it. He's flushed to his ears, he can _feel _it.

"Do you?" Aziraphale says.

Crowley's hand slips from his mouth.

"Thought it was pretty obvious," he says, looks down.

There's the soft sound of Aziraphale crossing the space between them. Then Aziraphale's fingers touch his chin and gently lift his face up to meet his eyes. Aziraphale's fingers are cool, but never cold. His skin has always been just the right temperature.

"I'm afraid we've both been rather foolish," he says.

"Well I'm not the one who thought I had a crush on bloody Satan," Crowley says.

"Oh do shut up," Aziraphale says, warmly, and kisses him.

They're in a bed a short time later, having decided they no longer want to go slow, in fact they've been going too slow. Aziraphale is situated quite comfortably between Crowley's long legs, and he hasn't done much besides kiss him and touch his thighs, but Crowley already feels like a stupid, quivering mess. He bites gently into Aziraphale's shoulder when Aziraphale pulls back and stares down. Crowley squirms.

"What're you looking at?"

"Just…marveling."

Crowley drops his legs open more. "At how I'm yours?"

He watches Aziraphale swallow, nod, shy, now of all times. Then he loses his breath when Aziraphale leans back down and traces his fingers along the underside of Crowley's thighs and come to rest at the most tender part of him. His fingers are slick and warm. Crowley pushes his hips up.

"Don't make me beg," Crowley says. "You know demons aren't supposed to beg."

"And angels aren't supposed to be jealous," Aziraphale says, but he presses his fingers into him, gentle, curious.

Crowley begs anyway. He's not even sure for what. By the time Aziraphale fucks into him he's babbling.

"It's kind of hot, you know," he says. "You being jealous. I like it—oh, fuck, _please_."

"Do you?"

Aziraphale's face is flushed pink but his hips snap that much harder. Crowley can't stop thinking about it now, Aziraphale lavishing him with that much more attention because he was _jealous. _Wanted Crowley to himself. And now he has him. But, oh, he always had him. Didn't he know? Now he's running his thumb down Crowley's kiss plumped lips and down the line of his throat and over his chest and lacing their fingers together. Now Crowley is wrapping his legs around Aziraphale's middle and hoping he lasts long enough to savor this, this first time.

"Yeah," he says, "Think you could've pushed me up against a wall to claim me as yours anytime and I would've been about it."

"Are you this talkative every time you have sex?"

"Dunno," Crowley says, hysterical. "This is my first time."

Aziraphale swoops down for a kiss, quite uncoordinated, licking his way into Crowley's mouth. He tastes like the whipped cream he had with his dessert earlier. Crowley is starving for him. Aziraphale hums into his mouth.

"Is it very forward of me to say how good you feel inside?" he says.

"N-no," Crowley says, flustered now with Aziraphale so close to him, their noses brushing, the sweetness of his breath across his face.

Aziraphale reaches between them and takes Crowley in his hand, does something quite clever with his thumb that has Crowley arching and scrambling and clinging to Aziraphale. He feels the beginning of something desperate in his gut.

"If—if you do that, I won't last," he says.

"Good."

Aziraphale says it with his whole body, and Crowley _feels _it vibrate through them both. The word feels like a command. The next time Aziraphale strokes him Crowley comes, voice cracking on Aziraphale's name, body bowed up into him. Aziraphale moans at the pressure of Crowley clenching down on him, the way his body trembles, and buries his face in Crowley's neck, thrusts into him three, four more times before spilling hot inside him. Crowley moans when he feels it, so wrung out and sensitive and still wanting to take anything Aziraphale gives him.

Aziraphale kisses Crowley as he's pulling out, which is somehow the gentlest thing Crowley has ever experienced, and he almost wants to crawl away. He's delighted when Aziraphale pulls him close thirty seconds later, arranging them so that he can give Crowley a good amount of body heat. It just doesn't seem very demonic for Crowley to ask for a cuddle. Then again, it's not very demonic to get fucked by an angel, but Crowley has his limits.

"Well," Aziraphale says, after a ten-minute silence. "I'd like to see Satan talk to you now with my fingerprints all over you."

Crowley launches up and kisses him senseless.

\--

They're about a week into their new situation, that is, kissing a lot and having sex a lot, when Crowley brings up 1967.

"You remember that night?"

Aziraphale looks at him sidelong. "Bringing you the one thing that could destroy you permanently? Yes, vaguely," he says.

Crowley snorts, shifts.

"I just…you said no to the ride. You never…"

Aziraphale sits next to him on the couch. He doesn't go to the desk. He hasn't, this past week. Crowley slings a leg over Aziraphale's knee, because it feels safer to, this way. Doesn't feel like he can say this if he's not touching Aziraphale in some capacity.

"After a while I started to think, you know," he says. "That I wasn't the right stock, perhaps."

"Oh Crowley," Aziraphale says.

They're in the bookshop, as usual, while the rain whispers gentle patterns against the windows. Aziraphale touches the snake mark by his ear. He's closed up early and made cocoa for himself.

"It wasn't that," he says. "I really did think we might just…do something irreversible. But I was wrong, wasn't I?"

He kisses Crowley's cheek, fingers lingering on his jaw. All that time, all that time, and they'd been holding back, and it took misplaced jealousy for everything to blow out into the open. Crowley laughs through his nose.

"So really, we should be thanking Satan," he says.

Aziraphale snatches his hand back. "We should _not._"

"Could send him a card: Dear Lucifer."

Aziraphale stirs his cocoa aggressively. Crowley kisses him quickly.

"I'm kidding, angel."

Aziraphale watches him over the rim of his mug as he sips his cocoa. Crowley glances out the window at the rain. He hates these dreary days. Maybe as a demon he's supposed to like them, but he's not done that job very well, has he? He squeezes Aziraphale's thigh.

"Fancy a drive out to the seaside? Supposed to be sunny there."

"That sounds lovely, I think."

They pack up the Bentley and Crowley creeps up to one hundred once they're out of London. He startles, though not in a bad way, when Aziraphale gently puts his hand on his thigh.

"My dear," he says. "You can go a bit faster, if you'd like."

And so Crowley does.

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley is responsible for Mamma Mia! and I don't take criticism on this
> 
> I think I saw art or a post somewhere not too long ago that suggested Satan having a one-sided crush on Crowley and therefore this. if anyone knows what I'm talking about please link me so I can thank OP otherwise I fever-dreamed this whole thing lmao. thank you [ark](https://et-in-arkadia.tumblr.com/) again for beta. I wrote this in one night like a possessed maniac.
> 
> thanks for reading xx on tumblr @stereobone and twitter @stereoroo


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